Some Notes on Mac Configuration

I was recently advising a fellow TEC-er on setting up their Mac, and they suggested I write it up. These are the tools I use daily for development! Here we go…

Alfred is an awesome tool. Like the Windows key on Win8, you can hit a keyboard shortcut (cmd-space by default) and type an app name or other command. Super handy.

iTerm2 is a replacement for the terminal. The best thing about OS X is that it has a great UNIX command line alongside a nice GUI, and iTerm2 makes the terminal even better. Don’t forget to configure and use the global terminal hotkey. So handy!

Spectacles lets you control your windows with the keyboard. So handy, especially on my Air with limited screenspace.

Sublime Text 3 is my go to text editor on every platform, and especially Mac. Favorite features include cmd-d (to select multiple matching text ranges and edit them simultaneously) and using the subl command line tool to open folders/files from the terminal.

Oh My ZSH! is a great upgrade for your terminal. Maintaining your own custom config is even better… but as a default setup it’s pretty good.

RVM is a good way to get assorted Rubies install on your system. Ruby is handy but it suffers from versioning hell. RVM can help, sometimes.

The GitHub app is also mega handy. No replacement for command line but it simplifies auth and basic commit/branch switching.

There are also some miscellaneous things you probably need to do: get the latest git, possibly install brew and ports (but I find more and more I prefer to compile and install from source), get all the latest updates from the App Store, and install XCode 5 (from the App Store these days). You might need CMake for Loom builds, along with Android SDK and Android NDK. We like to use the HipChat app for communication amongst our team.

As you can see, I really like a keyboard oriented workflow. Perhaps it is the inevitable outcome of programming for so long. I’ve trended more and more towards it. I haven’t quite gotten to the point of using tmux and emacs in a fullscreen terminal, but who knows…

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